Well finally after so long we finally got to play again. A followed a couple of simple suggestions from here so thanks all!

Gave all Orcs crossbows so they could do ranged damage and force the heroes to advance, very handy for getting them to go through trap filled areas as well!Let skeletons attack on the diagonal.Spawned a wandering monster if they were spending too long in an area.Gave the chaos sorcerer in my final quest the ability to cast a spell and attack in the same turn.

The net effect was the heroes felt a lot more under pressure and thought they had to work for their victories a lot more as they couldn't just play it safe.

I use the following rules to prevent door camping and door shenanigans:1) Ranged and Diagonal don't work through a door; you can only target Adjacent through a door2) When you're in the room, you can range target anything in the room3) When a Hero is in a room with at least one monster, the room doors are blocked by a monster force field. You can bypass the force field with veil of mist or pass through rock (this makes the two spells more useful).4) Heroes are on offense, and Zargon is the AI/DM (it's not a competitive game). Zargon wins if the Heroes camp. I use the rule informally, though it could be formalized.5) Informal. If Heroes don't immediately enter a room, Zargon will typically surround the door, see http://mepem.com/pemcode/?p=971

I also don't like all three Heroes having crossbows, so I use what I think is EU/UK style:6) Only one copy of each weapon (including the crossbow)7) You can have multiple weapons, but If you have a Battle Axe then you can't have a shield8) Bear in mind there's Longsword, Broadsword, Spirit Blade, Orc's Bane, Battle Axe... So Barb Elf Dwarf can each have a 3 (or 4) (or 2 + 2) melee weapon

Finally, I think it's lame when heroes charge in and insta-kill a boss (without letting the boss use his/her fun spells), so:9) You can't target a boss (unique monster) until you kill all his minions (non-unique monsters)

pemcode wrote:I use the following rules to prevent door camping and door shenanigans:

But you're taking away choices. I'm not a fan of 'can't' as a mod/fix, it creates the question of why not.

9) This could easily be worded as a quest specific in a quest you've designed but I'd refuse it as default "A: The Sorcerer if attacked will respawn in another empty space, until all his minions are killed." or we can have him disappear to a different room.

8) Isn't that part of point 7.

7) This could be seen as a standard rule, not a mod. The battle axe is 2 handed. A hero can't equip both. There's no equipping as such in standard HQ, the Heroes 'use' what ever they have.

6) I'd be OK with that but it will get boring for those who play HeroQuest a lot. The armoury needs expanding.

5) I guess that's the choice of the player. I little difficult I suppose for an AI.

4) So your heroes would instantly lose for camping. That's quite like flipping the board. You're not playing it how i like so you lose! Game Over!!!

3) I'd be OK with that, again, only if it was a quest specific, not by default. The Orcs in Kellar's don't have "force fields!"

2) So you can shoot through monsters and heroes with the crossbow? I suppose the obstructing Hero could Laydown. I'd allow it for spells but nothing else. Having this rule also makes your number 9 more of an issue. You've given heroes free fire but the normal way to protect your boss would be to use monsters as shields. Why can i shoot through things by default but not shoot the boss first!

1) If you were a hero in the dungeon, a lot of fighting, if about to be over whelmed, would bottle neck at the doors. For me if people want to play that way that's their choice. We can come up with creative ways to make this work against them but out right ruling out isn't creative. With the targets adjacent only mod, as the Crossbow can't be used on the adjacent square and only the adjacent square through a door can be attacked, it automatically rules it out, with out the need of specifically mentioning that players can't shoot through doors. Same goes for diagonal as it's not adjacent.

6) Agree on "will get boring". My idea is to replace one time use items with reusable items, because I see one time use items as "broken" anyway. This lets Heroes "level up" and it ramps up complexity (more choices) as the Heroes progress. New Armory items is more radical.

4) If Heroes do nothing, then Zargon can do nothing. In competition chess they have rules for stalemate and they have a turn clock, because otherwise a game could be stalled forever. In HeroQuest, Zargon is the DM. If two humans are playing HeroQuest and the Heroes decide to camp, Zargon should not feel pressured to suicidally charge the monsters. Instead, Zargon should face palm, take a nap, and pray that the Heroes will decide that they want to actually play HeroQuest, in which case they can wake Zargon up from his nap to resume play.

3) I have mixed feelings on this. I'm concerned that letting Heroes run into the hallway is an exploit. IIUC there's other dungeon crawl games where they "fix" the issue by doing a room at a time. Idk maybe I should revisit this in more detail to understand the "exploit" risk.

2) The "see" rules require interpretation ( http://mepem.com/pemcode/?p=864 ). I like the consistency and simplicity of (hallways = line of sight) and (room = see the room). Though good point on crossbow in room.

1) You can only target Adjacent through a door (which means Ranged and Diagonal don't work through a door) ... ?